Politically Correct
Sten Spinella
Valley Regional is a great school. We can all admit that. The teachers are fantastic, the opportunities abound, the students enjoy each other's company. But let's not pretend it's perfect. If high school prepares a student for the rest of their life, unrelenting positivity, heavy handed micro managing, the stifling of an increasingly more difficult to discover school spirit, and censorship, are not viable ways to foster a student's intellectual and social abilities or to run such a crucial four year school system.
I do understand where the proponents of such suppressive behavior draw their strength. They tend to cite the need for a "high sense of ethic responsibility" and a "positive atmosphere". Well, I can't argue with that. Yet, such a tightly controlled and overly orderly environment cannot last for long, is not realistic to a student's future, and is not conducive to a constructive learning experience. This is not to say that the situation at Valley Regional is all bad, but in order to create a more perfect union, a student's, also known as a human's inalienable rights must be protected.
Before I get into specific examples regarding the recent encroachment on student rights, I'll offer a bit of background. It is difficult to understate the importance of supreme court cases such as Tinker v. Des Moines and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, both of which had disastrous consequences for a student's right to free speech. Essentially, schools were awarded the jurisdiction of censoring the school sponsored newspaper (a power which has been wielded with the utmost authority here at Valley with reference to teacher firings, opinion columns, and various statements that were "too negative", but I digress). In addition, if the school deemed for an event such as a protest to be "disruptive to the school environment", or inflammatory, the demonstration could be immediately extinguished, with obligatory punishments to be doled out.
So here we stand. Let us first examine the now more strictly enforced hall pass rule. Such a laughable regulation is mocked in countless movies, where the archetypal uppity student hall monitor delivers citations to peers for roaming the halls without a pass. What wild animals. But this is real life. Students will soon be in college or have a job and they will be walking freely (many times with a backpack because, you know, it helps carry stuff more conveniently, and a coffee mug, because getting up at six ain't easy, but we'll get to that later). I can guarantee you that 100% of the time these former high school students will not be asking their professor or their boss for a hall pass. They would be laughed out of the office or the classroom. But now, students can face disciplinary action for walking twenty feet to the nearest bathroom without the all powerful hall pass. What is the justification for not trusting students enough to walk freely (this foreign word "freely" being the operative term) from classroom to classroom or bathroom? And are the teachers who have to write out these passes perhaps annoyed by taking time out of class to usher a student to their destination? Here again is the issue at hand: Forcing students to carry hall passes is not only a waste of time, but it poorly prepares students for the future. If a student strolls aimlessly through the halls, which happens less often than one would think, then that is their own decision, for better or worse. Students will not be under such a watchful an omnipotent eye when they graduate from the sheltered halls of Valley Regional. Then again, how would I know, I'm only a student here. I have no idea what's best for me.
I will move to free speech in a moment, but first allow me to touch on two more cockamamie decrees, these being the ban on any admittedly and undoubtedly subversive coffee related activity in the school, as well as the entirely too rebellious and bothersome wearing of pajama pants during a school day.
I will concede two points regarding pajama pants. One, they do not look good in school, or anywhere else for that matter, in the sense that they look bad. Also, it is in the Valley handbook that students cannot wear pajamas to school. This includes pajama pants. At the risk of sounding unsophisticated, this is a stupid rule. If a student wishes to look like a lazy bum who just woke up, that is their right. I do not attend some strict, stuck in the past, uniformed school, at least I thought I didn't. I live in the school with the best debate team, basketball team, soccer team, sports fans, writers, singers, actors, artists, scientists, and teachers in the state of Connecticut. Is the wearing of pajama pants a great threat to that legacy? The reason I bring this up is a friend of mine, and I will refrain from names as I have for the entirety of this piece, told me he was harshly reprimanded for his oft-donning of pajama pants to school, and warned not to do it again. Re read that sentence and consider the absurdity.
Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy waking up at the crack of dawn after a long night consisting of a basketball game and hours of homework, but it can be burdensome. By this I mean, without coffee, I feel, at times, as if I will fall asleep. And, at times, I do (when I go without coffee). For the purpose of this piece let's excuse my addiction to the sweet, sweet caffeine, and instead focus on the issues of choice, productivity, and a power structure taking on the role of an obsessively compulsive mother.
If I wish to drink coffee in school, I will drink coffee in school. I've got a nice mug that feels warm against my hands, and it starts the day off right. In a few words, you can pry my coffee mug from my cold, dead, hands. Now, if students are forced to wake up at such an ungodly hour, students should be allowed the means (within reason) to work through it. The options are sparse, but the godsend that is coffee remains. Without coffee, students are liable to become unproductive and inattentive due to exhaustion.
So why is coffee not allowed? Apparently, administrators are worried about coffee stains dirtying this new and cleanly institution. First of all, there's no evidence that disallowing coffee in the classroom will cut down on stains. Also, stains can be immediately cleaned up. It seems to me that the benefits of students drinking coffee in school largely outweigh the disadvantages. Students will be doing the same in the office or the college classroom, and the teacher's efforts will be better rewarded. Instead of totally outlawing the drinking of coffee, let us instead arrive at a sensible solution. I propose that if students are to bring in coffee they must carry it in closed-top mugs, and if a deadly spill were to occur the student would immediately be bound to clean it up. I'm sure the students would be capable of this.
I have so far been focusing only on the petty ordinances enacted in order to control the student's actions. Censorship is a much more serious matter to me, one that our country was founded against, and one that is synonymous with matters of life and death throughout history. I'll have graduated in a few months so this may seem an overreaction, and maybe it is, but I don't care. While the general legal structure of the school system allows for the administration to claim they are in the right in situations of free speech, they are often unabashedly wrong, and at times, even abusive in their enforcement.
I was recently called down after first block to have a discussion in the conference room (better known as the I.S.S. room) with two school officials and four of my peers. We were labeled the ringleaders of the fan section at boys' and girls' basketball games. The conversation we had with the officials was cordial, well-mannered, and at times verging on philosophical. I understand that both of the officials mean well for their students and hold the conviction that the fans should not be cheering against the other team, and should instead focus solely on positive chants for the home team. They "suggested" that we should keep from chants like "In your head" or "Winning team, losing team" (see me for a reenactment of both chants) and that one person alone is not allowed to yell during a free throw, and if the world was perfect we would sit on our hands during the opposing team's free throws because the fans are not to affect the outcome of the game and everybody is always on your side no matter what you do or how long you live.
This is a special kind of censorship. Chants and cheers were not singled out, and the officials were careful not to specify anything we could not say, because that would be blatant suppression of free speech. The officials framed the debate as one between moral and immoral, ethical and unethical. If we weren't a bunch of "thugs", we would not be negative to the opposing team. Valley Regional is better than those other schools with unruly fan sections. I was nearly crippled from the sheer tonnage of these fallacies. A high school fan section is not a reflection of how good a school is. The fan section is, however, an indication of how much spirit a school has, and at times, how much creativity it has. A high school basketball game should not have the same polite audience that a venue such as Carnegie Hall does. But, as one official said, Valley doesn't have to conform to the toxic "American sports culture." Why? As in sports, there is conflict in life. I have best friends that are Yankee fans. I'm a Red Sox fan. The same goes for Patriots and Giants. Valley and HK students share a special connection because of the back and forth battle between the opposing fan sections. And yet, I still have not reached the most appalling part about this continuing attack on student's rights.
In a recent game versus North Branford, a game in which the Valley boys' basketball team won by 54 points, new developments took place. To begin the game, the fans planned on executing a silent protest against the infringement upon their first amendment rights, and in a brilliant display of creativity, newspapers were circulated throughout the crowd to be held up and read nonchalantly until halfway through the first quarter. Well, the Valley watchdogs would have none of that, and when this dangerous activity was spotted, the newspapers were promptly confiscated. One of the "ringleaders" called down to the conference room was singled out: "Do you want to get thrown out before the game even starts?" Apparently, he did not, and neither did the other fans, so they responded to this threat by handing over their newspapers in a penultimate exhibition of irony. This compliance is part of the problem, but I'll get to that later.
The game began and the Valley faithful took to chanting "Let's have fun!" in a mocking tone, and even cheering for the opposing team when the Warriors had the game in hand. With a 48-18 lead in the second half, the fans were lead in a rousing cheer that went something like this.
Solitary leader: Is that score not 48?
Congregation: Yes that score is 48!
Solitary leader: Is that score not 18?
Congregation: Yes that score is 18!
Solitary leader: Is that (points to the Warriors) not the winning team?
Congregation: Yes that is the winning team!
Solitary leader: Is that (points to North Branford) not the losing team?
Congregation: Yes that is the losing team!
All together: Winning team! Losing team! Winning team! Losing team!
This statement of fact was immediately squashed by the unscrupulous Valley monitors. One waded through the crowd to chew out the leader and escort him off the stands and into the hallway to be shouted at by another official in the same manner that a boxer would punch a punching bag. The threat was neutralized, the leader detained in the hallway.
The situation could not have been handled more poorly. Americans, even if they are immature, untrustworthy high school students, have a strong sense about what's really wrong and what's really right, and when they are being lied to. While the thrashing of North Branford continued (The Warriors had no problem with destroying the Thunderbirds on the court), the Valley fans erupted. They chanted "First Amendment!", "Free [leader's name]", "We want [leader's name]" and straight up "[leader's name]." With about a minute to go, they got their wish. The leader returned to his people triumphant, arms raised in victory, basking in a glorious chorus of screams, applause, back slaps, and manic laughter. The rebels now had a symbol to allude to in their confrontation with tyranny.
Similar incidents occurred last year. A National Honor Society induction speech was eliminated for being too negative (although it was wonderfully written and thoughtful). The Valedictorian graduation speeches were carefully scrutinized and shortened to three minutes. Newspaper articles are heavily edited or completely stricken if they did not spew enough positive propaganda. Nothing substantial was done in opposition to these travesties.
As I mentioned earlier, I will be gone soon, hopefully to a place where I can express myself freely and drink coffee and where pajama pants in public. But even if the underclassmen can be annoying and at times a touch too confident (save it for senior year), I have respect for everyone, no matter what age level, as humans. I hope they will be treated with a degree of basic decency in their future years of high school after I have gone, and with the understanding of people who were kids once too. The future is why we can no longer sit idly by and do our damnedest to comply. As one of the officials told me in the meeting in the conference room, Valley is headed in the wrong direction. We have fundamentally different views of how to change this though. While the official promoted more rules and regulations, I thought to myself: that's what's gotten us in to this mess. Even if Valley was contributing to an argument culture, the real world remains the same, argumentative and divisive, and you need to have tough skin if you're going to deal with it. This truth is not something I learned from the Valley Regional curriculum. It's what I learned in my dealing with injustice.
I was first truly awaken to injustice in a meeting with a top school official in the library my junior year, my first year as editor of the newspaper. She brought a thick law book and graciously highlighted a section for me concerning student speech rights. I must thank her now for being so forthright in her unveiling of the power vested in her to commit injustice.
The students of Valley should be passionate about these issues, and if you're half as passionate as I am, your heart is in the right place. Next time, do not give up your newspapers. Do not stop toting your coffee mugs. Wear any type of pajama pant, no matter how ugly. At sporting events, be as creative and loose and free as you like, and root against the other team if that helps your team, isn't that how the free market works? If you are told to do differently, then you are told wrong. If you do differently, you are doing wrong. In yet another exercise of irony, this essay will undoubtedly be censored, and I could face disciplinary action, and if the administrators had their way, this essay would be burned in an analogous fashion to Fahrenheit 451. But it doesn't have to be like this. In America we have the luxury of reading and saying and doing the controversial in order to open minds. May this essay be shared both physically - passed from hand to hand - and through the internet - posted inbox to inbox - in order get the word out. As we saw in Egypt, it is a new age, even if some people wish to revert to the old and traditional.
Before I depart let me leave you with this. The vast majority of students, faculty, and parents are against what I have detailed in this piece. In this way, Valley does resemble real life. There is the illusion of democracy, but the power remains with the few, and to the dismay of the many, the few will do all they can to maintain it.
#FreeOskar
